Usually, when the Iowa Automobile Dealers Association has been involved in lobbying the Legislature recently, it’s about getting rid of front license plates. See this Radio Iowa story from last year.
But this time, the group is out to eliminate something else — county names on license plates. Naturally, I’m aggressively against this.
According to KIWA, the IADA only wants the “option” to create generic, county-less plates. But do you think it would really stop there? Why do some vehicles’ standard plates need to obscure their home (or past home) location in the first place? “Supply chain” is not a good enough answer.
The county name, or more accurately county number, used to be a promiment characteristic of Iowa license plates. That changed with the 6-character alphanumeric series plates in 1979. Since then, the county name has been stamped/printed at the bottom of every standard plate. And WE LIKE IT, as this 2016 Des Moines Register piece shows, with accompanying photograph of a collection that spans many counties. Leafing through old plates at sales or Pioneer Hall, or seeing them repurposed in 4H projects or elsewhere, would be less interesting with generics.
Only a handful of states still have county names on their plates, according to Radio Iowa. (Nebraska, except for the three largest counties, still uses numbers based on a system from 1922, and I’m sure Hooker County intends to keep it that way. Kansas has two-letter abbreviations in the corner.) Having the county name on the plate offers a little bit of regional pride in this ever-homogenizing society, and of course it’s always fun to see random ones on vacations.
Nooooooo!!! My geographical mind needs to know what county folks are from!!! https://t.co/HnX9dqJ5Sz
— J.D. Scholten (@JDScholten) January 31, 2022
The response to “Dozens of specialty Iowa license plates don’t have county names” is not “Get rid of it on the rest of them.” It’s “Well, what percentage of cars on the road have those county-less plates?” or “Maybe we shouldn’t have so many specialty plates, then.”
The bill passed out of committee this week and is eligible for a Senate hearing. The House has a companion bill more limited in scope, restricting generic plates to vehicles purchased by someone living in one county from a dealer who does titling/registration in another. That’s preferable, though the best course is no action at all.
UPDATE 2/12: The House bill has been replaced with one that says a license plate “need not display the name of the county,” which removes any requirement. So the House version now is also very bad.